THE HOLLYWOOD HISTORY OF ART

Until now, there has never been a full-length book devoted to the fascinating story of artists as portrayed in Hollywood films. Based on years of archive research and interviews, this will appeal to museum and gallery goers, film buffs, art fans and of course those with fond memories of Kirk Douglas being attacked by crows, Charlton Heston swallowing a mouthful of paint as he frescoes the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Ed Harris dripping brushfuls of paint onto a huge canvas, and Salma Hayek being transported at speed in a four-poster bed to a contemporary art gallery in Mexico City. Ever since the dawn of the sound era, Hollywood and friends have made a series of elaborate feature films about the lives of the great artists: the cast of colorful characters includes Fredric March as Cellini, Charles Laughton as Rembrandt, George Sanders as Gauguin, José Ferrer as Toulouse-Lautrec, Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh, Charlton Heston as Michelangelo, Mel Ferrer as El Greco -- and, more recently, Jeffrey Wright as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Derek Jacobi as Francis Bacon, Ed Harris as Jackson Pollock, Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo, and many others. To attain box office success, these films have represented the lives of artists in stories that take audiences on a journey from garret to gallery to glamour to gutter to grave. Although sometimes dismissed by art historians and curators, these films can tell us a great deal about how art and artists have entered the cultural bloodstream of Western culture.